Sarah Faye Cohen, Kennedy Library’s associate university librarian, attended the Open Education Conference in Park City, Utah on November 6-8, 2013, where she spoke about libraries’ role in open education in her presentation, Be the Change You Want to See: One Year into Open Ed.

“If we don’t change students’ expectations, then we’re not going to see the changes that we are asking for,” Sarah said in her presentation.

How libraries can support open education

Sarah was talking about how libraries can play a role in changing students expectations about research and the cost of resources, like textbooks. She also discussed the ways in which libraries can support open education. For example, our new Open Access to Textbooks for Students – called OATS – makes textbooks available for students to supplement their learning.

Getting to open ed is a process

Sarah also talked about open education as a process. Open education is not going to happen instantaneously; it will happen over time and Sarah sees libraries playing a huge role.